As the school year nears a conclusion, lead your students in a variety of activities and presentations that highlight their maturation and help them to imagine their futures. Here are three ideas:
1. Your Freshman Self (about 20 minutes)
Ask the students to bring photos of themselves from when they were freshmen (or photos from two years prior). Ask them to pass their old photos around the room as you lead a discussion in which they described their “freshmen selves” in the third person. For example, “He had a hard time making friends” or “She thought she knew everything.” Continue building on the discussion to encourage the students to describe how they are different now from when the photo was taken.
2. On the Spot: Imaging Life’s Vocations (about 15 minutes)
Make a set of flash cards with numbers on them to represent five-year age intervals beginning at age 25 and ending at age 80 (e.g., 25, 30, 35, etc.). Briefly present a summary of the term vocation in terms of a call to marriage, family life, consecrated life, or priesthood and career as a job that expresses one’s talents and creativity. Choose a random student to come to the front of the room to be “on the spot.” Ask him or her to pick from the flash cards and to describe the career and vocation he or she imagines when actually that age. Call on other students to repeat the exercise.
3. Large Group Presentation: Maturity (about 20 minutes)
Lead a discussion on the meaning of maturity and what maturity entails. Offer the following descriptions (write them on the board). Then ask the teens to add other descriptions of maturity to the list:
- A mature person has the ability to give as well as to receive.
- A mature person is empathetic; can perceive how another person is feeling.
- A mature person can establish and keep relationships with others.
- A mature person is comfortable with himself or herself.
- A mature person is emotionally, spiritually, and physically fit.
- A mature person is able to meet his or her needs in a healthy way.
